Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/406

380 who will get on better with you.'" Extremely amiable, but somewhat childish. Lenin's comment would be, "Kill with kindness!"

Bakunin spoke of his anarchism as revolutionary socialism, and sometimes as social or socialistic democracy. Kropotkin terms his own doctrine "anarchistic socialism," for he distinguishes anarchism from socialism solely in respect of method.

Kropotkin represents the relationship between anarchism and socialism in the following way. Socialism has sprung from three sources and in a threefold manner Social democracy (state socialism) originated from Saint-Simonism, anarchism from Proudhonism, autonomist trade unionism and municipal socialism from Owenism. These systems represent three trends, three methods, three routes towards a common goal; anarchism is far more closely akin to Owenism than to Saint-Simonism. Anarchising socialism and social democracy are distinguished one from another by their divergent estimates of organisation or of state socialism. Kropotkin is opposed to centralisation. Like Bakunin and Proudhon, he demands the autonomous federation of the individual associations, which he does not conceive as territorial, but rather as consisting of a moderately large number of persons belonging to different localities. Kropotkin adduces the postal service as an example of the anarchistic organisation of the future. Just as the posts between the different states can be carried on exceedingly well without a central office, so can the autonomous lesser social organisations be federatively linked and internationally combined. But Kropotkin forgets that the international postal treaties are regulated and guaranteed by the state.

Kropotkin rejects, not merely centralism, but individualism as well. He refuses to recognise the rights of the individual, since these do not signify equal rights for all, but the rights of the few over the many. Above all, Kropotkin dissents from Nietzsche, whom he regards as a hopelessly vague thinker, and where not vague, narrow. Rejecting Nietzsche, he rejects also the Russian individualist aristocrats like Merežkovskii.

To some extent, Kropotkin agrees with political radicalism in his estimate of the state; he opposes the state on principle. The radicals, he says, hope that the republic and universal suffrage will bring salvation, but their hope is vain. Parliament cannot help the weak, nor can it reconcile opposing